Tough third quarter, Harlem’s grinding ground game gets best of West Laurens again

It would’ve been hard to have a better third quarter than Harlem did on its last visit to The SHU back in 2024, with four touchdowns and three Jayden Futrell interceptions that broke a scoreless halftime tie, and helped hand the Raiders their first loss. 

But the Bulldogs very well may have topped it this past Friday, as they returned to Dexter and once again made the most of the 12-minute slice of action out of halftime to to turn a 10-0 deficit (that was very close to becoming 17-0 if not for a key touchdown-saving tackle on the last play of the first half) into a three-point lead, and a game headed one way the complete opposite direction. 

A pair of scoring drives, with an onside kick recovery in between, used up 11 of the period’s 12 minutes to give Harlem the lead, and completely deflate a home sideline that had previously held all the momentum. 

A few other key plays, including a third touchdown run of the night by bruising tailback Keaton Tillery, helped the Bulldogs shock West Laurens again with a 20-17 victory that will once again put them on track to win the region title. 

“I thought we played really hard,” said West Laurens head coach Kip Burdette. “But we just didn’t play well enough to win, and didn’t get the first downs when we needed to and points when we needed to, and then they kept the chains moving so long, it just kept us off the field.” 

Harlem (5-2, 3-0 region 3-AAAA) now holds a share of first place with Liberty County, which remained unbeaten in league action Thursday with a win over Long County – the Raiders’ next opponent coming up Friday in Ludowici. 

The stumble, after a two-game win streak coming in, sets West (3-4, 2-1 region) back below .500, and now turns what were some surefire chances of repeating as region champion into questions about whether it can do what’s needed in three remaining games to get back to the state playoffs. 

“We’re gonna go back, get healthy and get back at it,” said senior linebacker Leroy Mack.

For the first time in three meetings between the two fast rivals (they had never played each other in football before that ’24), the winner of the turnover battle didn’t win the game. 

West Laurens intercepted two passes late in the second quarter, while Harlem recovered possession only once… on the shrewd third-quarter onside kick that was one of many game-changing special teams plays. 

The ball, on most of them, bounced the Bulldogs’ way. 

But especially so after Harlem’s confident 66-yard march down the field to score on a single-yard run by Tillery on its opening third-quarter possession. 

The Bulldogs’ head coach Mark Boiter, known for picking the right times for a calculated gamble, rolled double sixes on the call as his kickoff specialist Yehudi Morales-Acosta slid one over midfield that two diving Raiders were unable to secure. 

It tumbled a little further, where Eric Williams made the recovery to steal a key possession that would yield a second-straight touchdown with only a little north of 60 seconds remaining in the quarter. 

On the previous drive, the Bulldogs had moved the chains on two third downs, and one fourth, as Harlem survived Ayden Moore’s third-down sack and a fumbled snap to convert with Tae Hudson bringing in a double-covered pass inside the West Laurens 5. 

They did more of the same as Tillery carried them over the line to gain on a fourth and 1, and then inside the Raider 10 on a 27-yard carry the following play. He would dive in for the go-ahead TD only moments after. 

The short-yardage menace had few big plays on nine carries for 47 yards, but used his 220-pound build to gouge out a handful of yards per carry that kept Harlem drives moving to match the clock-grinding pace that West Laurens has made its signature over the last three games. 

The Bulldogs turned that philosophy against the Raiders, limiting them to just six possessions in a game that, without the third-quarter swing to give Harlem an eighth, would have otherwise been even. 

“They possessed the ball the whole third quarter, pretty much, other than like a minute,” Burdette said. “Then we gave up an onside kick right there, probably the difference in the game, and then they just kept getting first downs on fourth (downs).” 

The loss of impact-making defensive end Maxx Chafin to a leg injury may have been one of the biggest setbacks in that cause of getting Harlem off the field. 

The junior, who exited early in the first half, was a major missing presence on the West Laurens front line that rotated in top-rated offensive linemen Jonathan Toney and Christian Rozier as frequently as ever for some extra bulk that was still not quite enough to stem the Harlem tide. 

“He’s a big part of the D-line,” said Mack, who picked up a good bit of slack as the defense’s leading tackler, on 14 stops with two for loss. “He makes a lot of plays. I knew  when he got out, we had to buckle up, get down and get ready.” 

Mack, himself, was a little banged up for a defense with several others battling various limitations, Jamari Blash leaving the game briefly at one point for a secondary that’s already been without corner Jaden Stanley for a few games in a row. 

“They play their hearts out, now,” Burdette said. “They battle through injury. We haven’t been full tilt since back in the summer. But our kids play hard, and we’re proud of ’em, and we’re going to keep fighting and keep trying to get better.” 

Bulldog bounces…

There were plenty of other important plays in the kicking game, not the least of which was a 28-yard Duggan Malone field goal just before halftime that stretched the Raiders’ lead to 10-0. 

They would open the third quarter with a pooch kick that nearly altered the game’s fateful course as Malone spun one in the air high above up-man Tae Hudson. But the ball stayed close on a bounce after glancing off his hands, and Harlem managed the recovery to begin its scoring drive. 

The teams traded a series of punts after the Bulldogs claimed the lead, but a second of those by Harlem’s Hayden Youmans pinned the Raiders inside their own 10 for a series that went nowhere, forcing a second-straight West Laurens kick that would be blocked by Jax Stadler for a recovery at the West Laurens 4. 

Tillery shoved his way in on the very next play, and Harlem increased its lead to 20-10 with a little south of four minutes to go. 

The Raiders, in dire straits, managed the needed drive with the help of some key receptions by J.D. Hogan and Jeremy Brownlee – on a contested grab between two defenders to help set up the touchdown – on Malone’s sprint-out pass to Hogan from three yards away. 

Stadler (whose multiple game-changing plays in the last two weeks also included a first-half pick-six at Southeast Bulloch) gobbled up the West Laurens onside kick try to prevent any chance at the Raiders chipping further away.

The first chapter in Friday’s tale of two halves was a direct contrast to the second. 

West Laurens had the supreme confidence and momentum, and looked poised to potentially win the game convincingly as Harlem – with a quarterback room in crisis mode after its two rotating passers had thrown back-to-back picks – in danger of coming apart at second quarter’s end, when the last of those threatened to change the game even sooner. 

There was a second and change left on the clock after Malone’s field goal that remained following a Malone touchback on the kickoff, giving Harlem the option of running one more play. 

The Bulldogs, opening from their 20, not only threw an ill-advised pass, but also did so with a brand new quarterback as Youmans (their early season starter) came on for his first action at the position since early September, when current starter Carter Smith took over. 

His overthrown ball landed in the hands of Devin Watkins, and nearly went all the way back, though Youmans was able to bring the sophomore linebacker down from behind as likely the last man with the power to prevent a TD. 

That kept the Raiders’ lead at 10 going to halftime. 

The rotation of QBs continued almost play-by-play the rest of the night, and the Harlem duo completed only three of nine attempts for 46 yards, but it was enough to get by on the combined 185 yards on 41 carries by Tillery, Finn Martin and others. 

Kingston O’Neal picked off Smith on a play that doubled as a second turnover on downs for the Raiders early in the second quarter, setting up the 73-yard drive for Malone’s kick. 

The D got the Bulldogs on a return drive at their own 36 after West Laurens went 65 yards to score on its first possession, confidently shoving it right down the middle of the ‘Dogs defense on alternating carries by Justin Blash and Kaden Bloodsaw, who spilled off right tackle for the five-yard score to get the Raiders on the board first just over four minutes in. 

Bloodsaw carried 14 times for 93 yards, and Blash 15 for 85. 

Malone was 6-of-12 passing for 56, with Hogan his leading target on a season-high four catches for 24.